them the most conspicuous was Clifford Melville,
whose name was originally Joseph Sobieski, with habitat Poland, whose
small part in this veracious tale belongs elsewhere.

Each had his place, and all were influenced by the great schemes of
Rhodes and their reflection in the purposes and actions of Wallstein.
Wallstein was inspired by the dreams and daring purposes of Empire
which had driven Rhodes from Table Mountain to the kraal of Lobengula
and far beyond; until, at last, the flag he had learned to love had
been triumphantly trailed from the Cape to Cairo.

Now in the great crisis, Wallstein, of them all, was the most
self-possessed, save Rudyard Byng. Some of the others were paralyzed.
They could only whine out execrations on the man who had dared
something; who, if he had succeeded, would have been hailed as the
great leader of a Revolution, not the scorned and humiliated captain of
a filibustering expedition. A triumphant rebellion or raid is always a
revolution in the archives of a nation. These men were of a class who
run for cover before a battle begins, and can never be kept in the
fighting-line except with the bayonet in the small of their backs.
Others were irritable and strenuous, bitter in their denunciations of
the Johannesburg conspirators, who had bungled their side of the
business and who had certainly shown no rashness. At any rate, whatever
the merits of their case, no one in England accused the Johannesburgers
of foolhardy courage or impassioned daring. They were so busy in trying
to induce Jameson to go back that they had no time to go forward
themselves. It was not that they lost their heads, their hearts were
the disappearing factors.

At this gloomy meeting in his house, Byng did not join either of the
two sections who represented the more extreme views and the unpolitical
minds. There was a small section, of which he was one, who were not
cleverer financially than their friends, but who had political sense
and intuition; and these, to their credit, were more concerned, at this
dark moment, for the political and national consequences of the Raid,
than for the certain set-back to the mining and financial enterprises
of the Rand. A few of the richest of them were the most hopeless
politically--ever ready to sacrifice principle for an extra dividend of
a quarter per cent.; and, in their inmost souls, ready to bow the knee
to Oom Paul and his unwholesome, undemocratic, and corrupt government,
if